0.19 Phy1170: energy -- work

Table of contents

• Preface
  • General
  • Prerequisites
  • Supplemental material
• General background information
  • An assumption of constant velocity
  • Use your graph board for sketches
  • Work in everyday life
  • Work in physics
• Sample calculations
  • Single force on a body
  • Multiple forces on a body
  • Force parallel to a ramp
• Do the calculations
• Resources
• Miscellaneous

Preface

General

This module is part of a book (or collection) designed to make physics concepts accessible to blind students. The collection is intended to supplement but not to replace thetextbook in an introductory course in high school or college physics.

This module explains energy and work in a format that is accessible to blind students.

Prerequisites

In addition to an Internet connection and a browser, you will need the following tools (as a minimum) to work through the exercises in these modules:

• A graph board for plotting graphs and vector diagrams ( (External Link) ).
• A protractor for measuring angles ( (External Link) ).
• An audio screen reader that is compatible with your operating system, such as the NonVisual Desktop Access program (NVDA), which is freelyavailable at (External Link) .
• A refreshable Braille display capable of providing a line by line tactile output of information displayed on the computer monitor ( (External Link) ).
• A device to create Braille labels. Will be used to label graphs constructed on the graph board.

The minimum prerequisites for understanding the material in these modules include:

• A good understanding of algebra.
• An understanding of the use of a graph board for plotting graphs and vector diagrams ( (External Link) ).
• An understanding of the use of a protractor for measuring angles ( (External Link) ).
• A basic understanding of the use of sine, cosine, and tangent from trigonometry ( (External Link) ).
• An introductory understanding of JavaScript programming ( (External Link) and (External Link) ).
• An understanding of all of the material covered in the earlier modules in this collection.

Supplemental material

I recommend that you also study the other lessons in my extensive collection of online programming tutorials. You will find a consolidated index at www.DickBaldwin.com .

General background information

I will explain some of the background material regarding work in this section and show how to work problems involving work later .

An assumption of constant velocity

In order to simplify the solutions to the problems, many of the example problems in this module will make the assumption that an object is moving withconstant velocity. Let's review what that means in terms of what you have learned from earlier modules.

Unbalanced forces cause acceleration

We know that whenever unbalanced forces are applied to an object, that object will accelerate. What does it mean, therefore, when we make a statement like "a force of 1newton to the right was applied to an object to cause that object to move 1 meter to the right at a constant velocity"?